


Good at believing

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Originally Posted on Tumblr, astonished :|, so frikken tame I'll be astonished if it gets more than 20 hits on AO3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 08:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11376834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: Hunting with Sam and Dean has gone stale, so you're outta here.  There just isn’t enough Should in the world to make you do the right thing.





	Good at believing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsWhozeewhatsis (OxfordCommaLover)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordCommaLover/gifts).



> Written for the lively @mrswhozeewhatsis ’s #2017 Louden Swain SPN Mini Bang and I broke the seal on the Station Breaks set by choosing _Gone_.

You can’t even floor it.  There’s a frequency in the engine around 40mph, some perfect resonance, and after that it starts to rattle as if the road is corrugated.  The damn thing won’t move fast enough to push through and just go.  So you’re trundling along, running the thing on expensive gas, twisting fists and fury.  On the upshot, if the engine does die, at least you’ll be able to Flintstone the thing to the next town through the damn hole in the footwell.

You shouldn’t even be this mad.

Two botched hunts and one too many threads had turned plans into a knot.  Working with Sam and Dean was hitting that tipping point - the end of the honeymoon period - where tired moments rubbed at your manners and wishful thinking made everyone sour.  Sam stopped protecting you from his low-sugar moments, Dean stopped making flirty jokes to lift your mood, you stopped rushing through your bathroom routine.  Sam stopped asking to use your shampoo, Dean stopped folding your laundry, and you started stealing more moments on your own.  So often you were all too exhausted to say sentences that would fix anything, so shit was left ratty and stifling.  And the next day you’d all pretend it was nothing.

Then you got spotted, two hunts in a row.  Sam picked up your description on the scanner and suddenly you’re a liability.  Dean chewed his teeth every time the tasks were dished out, Sam pretended he wasn’t pissed.  You didn’t even give them time to get specific, just announced it once you got back:  “So, this is going stale, with me,” you said. “I’m heading off.”

“Wait.  Wai-wait.  You don’t need to leave.”  Dean had stood and patted the air, because he could see how annoyed you were beneath it all.  “Everyone has a crap patch.  The police stuff will pass.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said with a shrug.  “I can be inept on my own dime.”

And how do you argue with an attitude like that?

Your car, in sympathy it seemed, gave up.  The starter motor was shot.  Dean had looked at it, held it in his hand like a mangled bird.  His eyes went straight to the utter shit heap Sam had stolen some months ago, and you got what he was thinking.  

“You kidding me?!  He woulda used a spell just to get it home!”

“I dunno what to tell ya sweetheart,” he sighed.  “It’s that or shoes.”

You kicked the tyre on your baby and glared at the other ‘car’ as though you could bully it to life with your energy.

“Or you could stay,” Dean offered.  “Wait for me to fix it.”

And have to owe him something.  “No,” you said darkly.  “Thank you.”

While he strolled over to look at the engine, you manhandled all your gear into the misshapen trunk.  With the driver’s door open, one foot in, you waited for his news.

Dean shook his head, pushed the junk’s hood closed and wiping his hands.  “Guess we’ll see if that spell’s still working.”

“Right then.”  You nodded, put on a No-Hard-Feelings smile, and got in, coaxing the car into gear and coughing down the drive.  The noise was ridiculous and you tried not to look at Dean wincing in your rearview mirror.

You turned left because… well, Canada might be interesting.  Maybe some camping in Colorado… Somewhere you could get away from the bitter reminders of every alternative life you could’ve chosen, including Bunker-style domesticity.  Anything romantic, really.

The billboards roll by - colleges, recruitment services, housing estates.  Fucking housing estates.  “Fucking fuckers,” you growled.  “You can fuck off with your American Dream shit.  Not everyone _has to own a house!!”_  You couldn’t keep your parents house from your uncle.  Couldn’t invest the inheritance from their will without giving yourself away.  Couldn’t fight your relatives for whatever could help you.  Couldn’t even turn over an asset to save your life.  You could kill things - that wasn’t ever a challenge - but holy shit, letting go of the future your formative years had promised; when would you put that dream away?  White teeth and whiter fences never failed to inflame you.  

_Koh-KoBANG!_

“NO!”

_K-BANG-BANG!!_

“YOU FUCKER!”

The car begins to slow and no amount of yelling or jerking on the wheel will make it recover.  The brakes still work enough, so you pull over.  It doesn’t even have the strength to hit a billboard, just rolls to a rasping stop a few yards short. Pathetic.

First things first, kick the shit out of something.  Scream a bit.  Clench your fists till the fingernails bend.  Take a couple- no, three- ibuprofen for the headache swelling behind your eyes. Stare down the road to Nebraska… and give in.  Again.

You can’t stop shaking your head long enough to use your phone properly.

“Hey, wha-”

“ _Not a word_ ,” you warn.  “Not one.”

Not a word replies.

“The stupid thing blew up.  I’m just after 70 Road.”

“Y’wan-”

“Look, I don’t like asking.  I’m trying to leave you, obviously, but _you_ know what’s out here.”  You squint under the sun and look out at the copse of trees, the far-away farm houses.  Nothing else but grass and latitudes.  “Yes.  Please.  I’d like you to come get me.  Please.”

The sound of the Impala blares out the speaker on your phone, and Dean hangs up.

It’s less than 15 minutes, in theory, unless he gets gas or whatever.  A lifetime’s worth when you can sit in the roadside grass and look up at the man in the billboard, his generic niceness smiling at a woman he apparently loves, apparently by the house of their dreams.   _He’s not even that handsome_ , you notice.  But they want to appeal to all-types you guess, not just people who look like Dean.

He had definitely flirted with you.  And then he definitely flirted with a motel receptionist, and you’d dealt with that just fine.  But then you didn’t flirt back - not for some freebie wink he’d throw out for any pair of lashes.  You thought you were fine, but you’d been surprised, and your anger at your own innocence, after hunting alone for so long, made you petulant.  You picked up men, he picked up women, then you didn’t pick up at all, and he kept on picking up and it just… it was a mess.  Mixed messages and acid-comments, passive aggression and evasive morning-afters.  You talked in half-sentences and passed things to each other like cabin-fevered siblings.

Then.  Then it got real.  Dean got hit in the head, fell in a way that made your throat cold, and while Sam finished off the last of them you scrambled over and felt through Dean’s hair, calling his name, near tears as the moment replayed in your mind.  He was breathing, and his pupils responded enough, but Sam couldn’t get between you to check him.  You weren’t used to being frightened like this, and Dean woke up between your legs, pressed against your chest, listening to you pray his name as hope wheezed in and out of you.

Then you got cut and he stopped talking altogether.  So many times you’d replayed the minutes - “Up here sweetheart, look at me,” he said, words jolting out of him as he carried you to the car.  “Gon’ get somethin’ on that, yeah?  Real quick. _Sam?!_  Sam’s on it, okay.  Don’t you close those pretty eyes.”

After that he kind of talked to your chin, said his words to the space in front of you, smiled on cue. Something about the hunt must’ve knocked the fun out of him because he stopped looking for dates, and no amount of poking or joking could score a laugh your way.

But he said you have pretty eyes and you looped the words ever after, danced them ribbony around your mind as it drifted into sleep.  He’d wrap you up in his arms and tuck you into your bed in your house, your double-story, white-and-blue weatherboard house.  Socks and track pants.  Mussy hair.  Warm enough?  Here, let me.  Stubble and coffee.

Because you’re a still a child in so many ways and damned if you can keep from dreaming about things you shouldn’t want.

If you lean on the car you’ll have to watch him approach, so you stay in the dirt and tug the weeds.  The engine reminds you of parents and that flavour of Should’ve Known Better.

Dean opens the trunk without asking, hauls out the bags, and you climb up off the ground to help.  He holds them - two in each hand - and curls his eyebrows about how you have so much stuff.  You didn’t know eyebrows could be sarcastic until you met Dean.

“Well I don’t have a Tardis trunk, do I?”

Following him back to the Impala, you realise that each of them was from a different mistake.  The first - when you ran from your shredded home - then Blake, then Flint, then- oh, shit! Whatsisname… Shaun! Shaun?   _Shane!_  Damn, forgot him already.  These days the bags were Clothes, Costumes, Weapons and Equipment.  Plus the bag on your shoulder, full of all that kept you sane - your mementos and talismans, photos and treats.  How long did you really plan on crossing the states with this cache of Make Do?

The Impala’s engine mocks you, smooth and healthy and low. You glance over at Dean, who ignores you for the road.  The dead straight, featureless road.  When you glance again, he drags a flat hand through the air.   _Look at the many words I cannot say._

Ugh. “Permission granted.”

“So you got a fright,” he says, calm and kind.  “That’s what happens when you hunt with people.  You get used to it.”

That’s not it.  You drag your thumbnail over your lips and peer at the plains.

“I thought we were just getting good,” he offers.

We?  “What _we?”_

“All of us,” he says with another sweep of his arm.  “When we were working.  Didn’t have to say as much, started knowing what you were gonna do next.  And we saw you doing stuff that fit in with us.  You know, got into a groove.” Wavy gravy goes his hand now, and there’s a tentative smile on his face.

This was true.  In fact the two hunts before you got hurt were smooth as.  Clean, easy.  Maybe that’s why the mistakes were so jarring:  You’d established a standard.  Maybe him clamming up was a coincidence, not frustration at your ineptitude and the resulting stitches.

“But outside of that,” you started. “You know, Sam stopped looking at me when we’d pass each other things.  Started stealing my toiletries-”

“That- oh no, you don’t know?” He looks at you now, light and incredulous.  “That’s the good stuff.  That’s-!  That’s what we do to each other."  He’s relaxed!  He’s settled in!  You know, ‘cause you’re family.

Shit.  

Humiliation edged around your hurt, the idea slowly dawning on you that all these gestures hadn’t been about you overstaying your welcome, but about your welcome being solid.  And you’d _completely_ missed it.

 _Family_.  Right.  Like a cousin.  “So why did you- I mean, I might be wrong, but you seemed to lose your sense of humor… stopped going after women so much.  Was that- Were you doing that?”

Dean licks his lips and grins ruefully at the road, something entirely too cryptic for you to interpret.  “Yeah well… maybe I got a fright too.”

“What, like, a pregnancy scare?”

Dean huffs a laugh and shakes his head.  “No, nothin’ like that.”

The bunker comes into view and what’s behind you doesn’t seem like an unfinished task so much.   _No one could’ve dreamed of a home like this,_ you think.  But it does seem a lot more secure, more definite than any family home you could expect.

“Do you still feel like leaving?” By the open trunk, Dean has your bags again, pulling away from your reach as you try to take one from him.  His smile is cheeky as he leans away, teasing, and you can’t look him in the eye.

“No, I guess-” you clear your throat.  “I guess I kinda burned it up.”

“Gonna leave it out there, then?”

“That heap of junk?”

“Yeah, that too.” He smirks.

“Oh, don’t Dr Phil me,” you groan.  “Gimme a bag.  My arms aren’t painted on.”

Down the corridors, you’ve nothing smart to say, and then nothing you’re able to say because when his free arm brushes against yours he doesn’t pull back, lets the knuckles knock as you walk together, your bags nudging you into the middle of the path.  Then his finger catches onto the last of yours, hooks the 3rd and 4th, and you watch the ground roll under you like everything is normal and there isn’t a new heat warming up your arm.

You use the load to push the bedroom door open, shuffling sideways, dropping yours on the bed.  Dean drops his on the floor, pulling your hand down by his leg before either of you have stopped moving.  The best you can do is turn to face him, let the warmth inside his shoulder and down his flank slot up against your side.

Dean leans his head against yours, his lips pressed into your temple, and slides a slow hand down your shoulder.  

“Where were you headed?” he mumbles.

“…Canada?” Seems such an overreaction now.  “I hadn’t really decided.”

“Why did you wanna leave so bad?” He moves so he can look down at you for the answer.  “It couldna been just occasional moods we have.”

You can’t tell him it’s because you feel out of your depth with him.  They just seem like a whole tier higher in your world - more capable, more experienced, better at everything.  Dean wouldn’t let you put yourself down, but you can’t prop yourself up.

“It’s just, I don’t have anything to make you stay,” he says.  “Nothing more than I had this morning.  You know here.  You know me, you know what I’m like.  I mean, you can have it, but it’s nothin’ that great.”

“Sorry, are you talking about you?” You watch him shrug his face like he’s too tired to fight it.

“I am such a crap deal, sweetheart.” He smiles weakly, apologising already.

“You know, if you went back to sorting my laundry, you’d be a near perfect hunting partner.”  

He smiles ruefully, shakes his head with a quiet chuckle, but is interrupted by your burst. “Seriously Dean, I felt like you guys were sick of me.  So when the nice gestures disappear- Why-? What’s so hard about-”

“Sweetheart, if I’m ever gonna get my hands on your underwear, I really-”

“What?!”

“I just didn’t want to start in your laundry, you know?”

You scowl in confusion, asking him questions with your brow, and Dean nods, realising his vagueness.  He holds his hands up, saying “I’m sorry.  I’m not bein’ smooth, I’m being clumsy, okay?”

“With what?”

“Come on,” he groans. “Surely you know.”  Dean looks into your eyes, waiting for you to figure something out. He raises his eyebrows, and when that doesn’t work, he caresses your cheek.  It’s a sweet thing to do, but more than he’s ever shown before, and his expression keeps pleading with you to read his mind.

Dean’s gaze drops to your lips for just a second before blinking back up to your eyes again, patient and hopeful.  And you might finally have it, because the only reason people look into someone’s eyes that long is because they want them to look back.

“You want me to stay?”

“Yeah,” he nods, smiling all soft and shiny.  “I want you to stay so I can see you every day.  And be grumpy with you.  And be scared about you.  And-”

“-And get your hands on my underwear?” you ask with a sly eyebrow.

“Ha! Yes.”  Dean slips his palms down your arms, sighing as though the hardest part is over, then steps closer still and leans down a little.  “Get your underwear sorted.”

“I would appreciate the help.”  You lean up, bend up, and curve yourself into him from knees to lips. God, those lips. You’ve waited your whole life for those lips.  And it makes you smile, the realisation that Dean’s far better than any suburban dreamboat you could’ve imagined way back when.  It feels easy to let those aspirations go with his arms across your waist and his warmth pressed against you. So you’re not going to try and stop yourself.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing.”  These will be your re-formative years.  “Keep kissing me.”

“Okeydokie, but you’re explainin’ that later.”

**Author's Note:**

> Gone
> 
> The billboards snicker in the valley / I stare back at em with my gamma rays  
> Maybe I’ll go and start a fire / If they catch me they’ll put me away  
> They used to say / He’s got potential  
> Now I’m on my way to nowhere (no way)
> 
> Six more miles and I’m out of state  
> Five more ways I could’ve made my case  
> Four suitcases of reasons it went wrong  
> Got a three Ibuprofen headache  
> We’re just two more people who didn’t make it  
> Had one good thought in my head  
> But now it’s gone.
> 
> The ashtray knows I’m alone / It’s certainly seen its better days  
> I live and die by the phone / I live and learn and love my foolish ways  
> But who will save me on the day / Will no one try to save me?
> 
> chorus
> 
> One good reason for leaving / I’m not blind and you can’t see  
> I’m just good at believing / Damn my sensitivity  
> I can’t help it my heart bleeds / I’ll be damned if I can help it…


End file.
